The Rocky films are great aren’t they? They started off as a gritty fictional document of a rising boxing star, closing with a film that showed Rocky Balboa resembling a relaxed, tanned phallus that has been dipped in a particularly aggressive wasp nest.

And while you think that Rocky was out for the count (or, It Really Should’ve Thrown The Towel In At Rocky IV Because It Was Ace), you’d be massively wrong.

That’s because Rocky is climbing up the ropes again in slow motion, this time with another hugely stupid idea which sounds like the work of a satirist. Ladies and gentlemen, in the blue corner we have decency which is already weeping… and his opponent, in the red corner, Rocky: The Broadway Musical!

That’s right. You are not dreaming that last sentence. A team of berks, comprising of Tony Award-winning songwriters Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, alongside Thomas Meehan who has been involved with Hairspray, Annie and The Producers, are working on a musical adaptation of a bunch of films that star a central character who talks like he’s deaf.

The show is set to hit Broadway by 2013.

Better yet is that Sylvester Stallone is throwing his oar in, attending a private reading of the show which was held in New York recently.

Meehan says:

“At first I thought, all the world needs is a ‘Rocky’ musical. But then I looked at the film. I thought it had beautiful construction and such high emotion, and it was a natural musical: There is a David and Goliath story, a Cinderella story, a love story between two outcasts. It’s less about boxing than about finding self-respect and finding your soul mate.”

So, what can we expect from Rocky: The Musical?

Well, initially, we’d hoped it would just be two fellas on a stage knocking forty shades of shit out of each other, allowing pretentious theatre-goers to coo about how visceral and ‘powerfully brutal’ the whole spectacle is. However, it is clear that this wouldn’t be enough as a musical with no songs isn’t a musical at all.

As such, we’d like to see a rendition of a song called ‘Adrian’ (yes, that’s how you spell it. No, it isn’t ‘Adrienne’. We know. Don’t blame us), which sees the assembled cast delivering the name, over and over in the iconic manner that Stallone delivered it in the film, leaving audiences treated to a sound not unlike six bull seals being clubbed over the head with rubber mallets.

We’d also like to see a song based on the robot that Paulie gets for his birthday. And don’t forget James Brown’s ‘Livin’ In America’. It would be utterly, utterly pointless without it.

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Sylvester Stallone is a hilarious man with an even more hilarious face, topped by his even more amusing voice. He’s a man who has made a career of sounding like he’s been stung on the tongue by a nest of wasps.

Of course, he’s much more than a mere actor. He’s a director, writer and launched the movie themed Planet Hollywood restaurant chain which are uniformly awful. That said, it’s kinda cool to eat a burger next to Spock’s ears in a clear perspex case.

He’s also a big promoter of cigarettes in his films and likes getting caught in Australia with human growth hormone vials. And now, to add to this glittering CV, he’s going to launch a menswear line.

You heard.

Sly will be his very own clothing line and, bafflingly, it’ll be based on his two most famous roles – Rambo and Rocky. In his words, the range “looks for the rebel and the gentleman”, whatever that means.

So what can we look forward to? Well, aside from the dull t-shirts that will invariably hit the shelves that feature the words “ROCKY” and “RAMBO” on them, he could really go to town with his choices.

We’d like to see a sleeve made of pig meat which you sport, complete with First Blood wound which you can stitch up yourself in public while being pursued by a grimacing penis. We’d also enjoy it if you could by a facemask which makes you look like the blacked-up Rambo, complete with head band and perma-scowl.

As for the Rocky line, there should definitely by some kind of cap that fits on your head so tightly that if makes you talk like you’ve got brain damaged from being repeatedly punched in the mind by gigantic Russians.

Failing that, he should make tailor-made robot outfits that transform us into the robot that Paulie gets for his birthday in Rocky 4.

If these things don’t happen, then it’ll have been a ginormous waste of everybody’s time.

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If you ever wondered why Mary J Blige consistently beats you at 110m hurdle events, there's a chance that the answer may have appeared.

An Albany investigation into the sale of steroids and human growth hormones has thrown up thousands of names, including Mary J Blige, 50 Cent, Wyclef Jean, Timbaland and Tyler Perry. Of course, Mary J Blige is denying the use of either steroids or HGH, but there's one fool-proof way to uncover the truth.

The testicles. If Mary J Blige is on steroids she'll have tiny testicles.

Steroids, HGH, Gummiberry juice and other performance enhancing doohickeys have long been prevalent in sports, much to the consternation of Mr Dick Pound – chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency and co-chairman of the Yes I Know My Name Sounds A Euphemism For Masturbation Subcommittee along with Mr Wank Relentlessly. But now it seems as if steroid-use has left the sporting arena and entered a more dangerous territory – urban music.

Although entertainers have been caught with steroids and human growth hormones before – namely Sylvester Stallone in Australia and Chris Benoit – it's usually been because they've needed to rip the throats out of Burmese soldiers or murder their entire family. But rappers? R&B singers? Cross-dressing self-help writer/actors? Surely not.

But that's what an investigation may have uncovered. Entertainers such as Mary J Blige, Wyclef Jean, Tyler Perry, 50 Cent and Timbaland have been cited in Albany County district attorney P. David Soares' investigation into the trade of steroids and HGH. While none of them have been accused of breaking the law, they have all apparently been found to have the substances shipped to their homes, studios and hotels by a Long Island fitness club and its director of antiaging and longevity.

Needless to say, Mary J Blige isn't having any of it, as the New York Times reports:

A spokeswoman for Ms. Blige, Karynne Tencer, said: “Mary J. Blige has never taken any performance-enhancing illegal steroids.” Ms. Tencer added that Ms. Blige had not taken any antiaging steroids either.

And it's probably fair to say that 50 Cent hasn't taken any performance enhancing either. True, the man is built like a fleshy battleship but, having seen his movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin' we can safely conclude that his performance was just about the least-enhanced we've seen in decades. 

Mary J Blige, though, that's another story – especially when you see what some of her original full-length song titles were before she chopped them down for brevity. There was No More Drama Or I'll Punch Your House Over, I'm The Only Woman With Guns Like Watermelons, Stay Down If You Don't Want Me To Snap Your Neck With My Jacked-Up Eyelashes and, of course, the enduring Family Affair (Raaaargh! I'll Fucking Kill You Remix).

In any case, Jamie Lynn Spears should be thankful that Mary J Blige approved of her pregnancy, because God only knows what sort of soggy lump of twitching nerve endings would have resulted if she didn't.

Read more:

Prominent Entertainers Cited in Steroids Inquiry - New York Times